An indirect result of our discussion about Piccolayesterday, I
noted an entry describing the pain of
taking house panoramas. Back to look at the images again today. Things have improved
considerably, and I was through with the whole thing in less than 30 minutes, with
considerably better results. Here before and after:

Strangely, the old images don't look as bad as I thought. Clearly I had expended a lot of
time lightening them up, but still the gradation is better with the new one, notably in the
sky on the right. And for some reason, there's a pink tinge in the highlights of the new
images, possibly a problem with DxO Optics “Pro” that I
don't care about enough to pursue.

More pain with eBay today, trying to get my
money back from the person who took money for the disk I ordered two weeks ago, but didn't
deliver. It seems that eBay won't help much because I paid by bank transfer, so I'll have
to take legal channels. But eBay told me what they thought of what I did today:

We have reason to believe that your eBay account has been used fraudulently without your permission. We’ve reset your eBay password. If you had your PayPal account linked to your eBay account, we've disabled your PayPal link to protect your funds. Any unauthorised activity, such as buying or selling, has been cancelled and any associated fees have been credited to your account. Any listings that we removed are included toward the end of this email. We assure you that your financial information is securely stored on a server and cannot be seen by anyone.

I've seen this too often, most recently in April, May and July. And though they claim to have
reason, they don't provide it, even when asked. I see this as reason to believe that it's a
bug that they don't want to fix. It would be nice to understand what it is that triggers
the bug. In the meantime, I have a whole lot of old, worn-out magic words
passwords of increasingly insulting nature.

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Greg Lehey2017-09-25T01:32:16+00:00http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2017.php#D-20170925-013802http://www.lemis.com/grog/diary-sep2017.php#D-20170925-013802
politicsopinionTime for the Second American Revolution?

It's no secret that Donald
Trump is a liability to his country. He's not making the USA America great
again: he's gradually eroding its importance on the world stage.

The USA has two main concerns on the nuclear
arms stage:
the Iran nuclear
deal, which Trump calls a “terrible deal for America” or some such drivel, and the
current escalation in North Korea.
The whole world is calling for a diplomatic solution for North Korea. But that's what they
have with Iran, and Trump is threatening to not honour the US obligations under the treaty.
What incentive is that for the North Koreans to negotiate?

His behaviour over the last week has been particularly appalling. It seems that he is doing
everything to provoke North Korea,
including calling their Supreme Leader “Rocketman”. I can only presume that he didn't call
him “Mr No Dong” because he wasn't aware of
the relevance.

Even without the crisis—it's hard to call it diplomatic—there should be things that are
beneath the dignity of a statesman, notably appearing at
the United
NationsGeneral
Assembly and threatening to obliterate another member state! And there were many more.

In the process, the North Korean responses show a finesse and use of language wholly unknown
to Trump. A dotard, he is—a word that the Washington Post thought appropriate to explain to its readers—or a barking dog.
And Ri Yong-ho showed much more insight than Trump has ever done. But the real danger is that this kind of
insult-flinging may be OK in a school playground, but not between grown men who have their
fingers on atomic triggers. I don't see any great likelihood that it will come to war, but
somebody like Trump is the right kind of personality to drive the world into catastrophe.
He has to go.

The US constitution was written at a time when the American States were very concerned about
accountability, and it provides ways to deal with rogue leaders. But they're slow. After
the Watergate affair it took
over two years before Richard Nixon
saw no other way out than to resign. Does the world have that much time? The alternatives
are outside the law, but that's the stuff of revolution. Maybe it's time to consider the
options.

A new Washington Post-ABC poll found that two-thirds of Americans oppose launching a
preemptive military strike against North Korea, with a majority trusting the U.S. military
to handle the escalating nuclear crisis responsibly but not President Trump.

Apart from the somewhat ambiguous wording, only two-thirds oppose the idea of
a preemptive strike? So 100 million people are either for it or undecided? That's a truly
horrifying statistic.

Apart from that, though, it's clear that people in
the USA have different concerns. Here the
headlines from the Washington Post for today:

Across the country, players decide what they will do before kickoff. And Colin Kaepernick
isn't even playing.

Colin Kaepernick vs. Tim Tebow: A tale of two Christianities on its knees

One is kneeling in private prayer. The other is kneeling in public protest.

Jaguars owner joins players during anthem protest in first game since Trump’s NFL
remarks

Shahid Khan, who had contributed $1 million to the Trump inauguration, locked arms with
his players in what is believed to be the first visible participation in relation to
anthem protests by a league owner.

Names I have never heard before. It appears to be a kind of football, so I suppose NFL
stands for National Football League, but that's so US American that the rest of the world
would have difficulty understanding it. It seems that the players are protesting against
police brutality, something laudable if it weren't apparently divisive.